My shortened UDS grill

Hey guys. I haven't been on here for a few years but still smoke and Q whenever duty calls. My Weber Performer grill has seen it's better days. I seldom grill to be honest with ya. Usually when I do anything it is smoking on my UDS. But when I need a grill I NEED a grill lol. The poor Weber just sits out there and is in really poor condition. The ash catcher pan is destroyed as the rivets came out a few years ago and the aluminum got bent and I rigged it back together with self tapping screws. The aluminum is so bent up it won't even stay in and is hanging by one pin. The intake vents are ruined and the lid blew off out of the back of my truck at 60 mph on our way to tailgate last year and bounced down the highway. But the cart that it sits in is absolutely beautiful. I have 2 UDS smokers and only one ever gets used. The other one has been sitting out there on my patio needing a new paint job and rusting so yesterday I chopped it up and made a grill/mini smoker out of it. Now I just need to figure out how to adapt it to my Performer cart as it appears to be about 1/4-1/2" too wide to fit in there. If I could get it through the opening I could just set in on the 2 carry handles that will be bolted to the thing. My Performer is one of the newer models with the round tubing not the square. I am not sure if they changed the dimensions as I have seen threads where people put UDS smokers in old style Performer carts. I used all pieces from the original UDS and aluminum pop rivets along with ultra copper high temp RTV. Going to give it a fresh coat of paint this morning. Pardon the one pic with my fire basket. I was using this thing as a trash can as I was building it lol.

jermoQ said:

That is a cool little grill! Hope it works out grilling as well as the regular UDS's work! If it does I might be on the market to make one that doesn't require welding.

By the way, what did you use to seal up the gap on the top?

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Not sure what u mean by gap on top but I put s thin layer of ultra copper high temp rtv on the filler piece before I slid the top over it so that it smashed the rtv into the lower joint once it was slid together. Then once riveted together I put another thin layer inside all the way around where the filler ring met the top piece.

[ame]https://youtu.be/TNiNkmqkhQw[/ame]

[ame]https://youtu.be/pPm8mc08WLE[/ame]

effinUker said:

That looks like a fun little cooker! Nice distance from the fire to the grate too.

I cook on my weber with a rotisserie ring in place. I stuck some SS screws thru it to hold a grate on it, and the distance from the fire is similar. You should have great luck with that as an all around cooker - grilling and smoking. Nice setup, thanks for sharing it.

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Thank you. I noticed that too as far as the distance from the grate. It is close enough for grilling but not quite as close as it is on the weber so you don't have such a hard time with it burning things. I would assume it would cook raw bratwurst better which can be tough to cook over an open flame. I've got a chicken spatchcocked now and two fatties getting ready inside and I'm going to smoke some meat on this thing to see how it works.

Here's my third and final video on this smoker.

[ame]https://youtu.be/5niEcGUpA-g[/ame]

effinUker said:

You got a weber kettle lid to top that thing with? That'll finish it off.

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Yes I do but it is in very poor condition. You can see the condition of my Weber grill in these pictures. A few years ago the ash catcher pan broke loose for no apparent reason and got all disfigured and so I ended up reattaching it was self tapping screws but over time constantly removing and reinstalling that pan in a mangled holder has really messed it up. Last year we were driving down to my nephew's college football game to go tailgating and the lid blew off my grill at 60 miles an hour and bounced down the highway and landed in the ditch. It messed it up really bad and the only way I could straighten it was to put it on the concrete and stomp on it to try to flatten it out so it would sit back on their half Square. So basically the grill isn't in that great of shape. Even the draft fins at the bottom of the grill were rusted and seized up and upon trying to move them they broke off so about the only thing worthwhile on this Grill is the lower part of the kettle and then you would have to buy a bunch of replacement parts. Now as far as the lid fitting on this smoker I have been messing with these particular drums for several years and I know the measurements of them well. That lid will not fit on this drum unless I was to put a ring around the inside or something and even then I have not tested that to see what kind of fit I would have. It is definitely something that I have thought of. Whether or not I will actually pursue it I don't know. I actually like the way these smokers look with a flat lid I think it complements them. The ones I've seen that have a Weber lid on them look kind of silly LOL but it's hard to argue form and function over looks.

kls44 said:

Nice project! Use that piece of barrel to make a rotissorie ring with the performer lid.

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Thank you. I got about a two and one-quarter inch wide ring already cut out from the rest of that Barrel de burred and hanging on the wall in case I want to use it the future. I figured I better get a piece taken out of it before I threw the rest away or I might regret it later LOL